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If this is your standard for failure, you're going to experience quite a bit of selection bias: - Anyone who actually is driven to the point of actually commit

If this is your standard for failure, you're going to experience quite a bit of selection bias: - Anyone who actually is driven to the point of actually committing suicide will not be around to tell stories for obvious reasons. - Anyone who is driven to the point of bankruptcy is unlikely to stick around the Valley with its incredibly high cost of living, (unless you are talking to the homeless, which it sounds like you aren't because there are plenty of stories of failures to hear). - He or she also probably doesn't have money for a therapist. Realistically, the reason people like failure stories is because it is encouraging when you are in the midst of one to see examples of cases where "it gets better". It doesn't cheapen our language to use failure in this way any more than it cheapens our language to use any other form of hyperbole.

forgottenpass 12y ago
It doesn't cheapen our language to use failure in this way any more than it cheapens our language to use any other form of hyperbole. That's cold comfort in a world where "literally" now also means "figuratively."
- alwaysdoit 12y ago
  The problem of words having different magnitudes of potency depending on context is different from words being used to mean the exact opposite of their meaning in a non-ironic way.
thaumaturgy 12y ago
I gave up a well-paying job moving up the IT ranks at a major national recession-proof corporation because I came down with a case of wanderlust. I squandered the money I had left and found a passion as a rock climbing instructor that left me worse off than broke. I owed money to two different national banks and was unable to open a new checking account anywhere for years. I worked a retail job for an outdoor store in one of the most economically depressed areas of the state, until I was fired for constantly being five to fifteen minutes late to work. I had no other job prospects and was left with a resume and work history that would ensure I was unemployable at my previous levels for pretty much the rest of my life. I gambled what I had left, which was almost nothing, and moved to another place with the hopes of getting a job I saw in a newspaper ad and starting over again. I was homeless and I lived out of my car for a while. There. See, the thing is, nobody actually wants to hear that shit. Everybody wants to hear about why that whole period of life was actually really amazing (and some parts of it were pretty good), or they want to hear the upbeat happy ending (and there is one, in this case). But nobody wants to actually hear about a lack of success, or, like that Cake song goes, a bit of interrupted prosperity. The people that have those stories to tell pretty quickly learn not to tell them, and what's left are people whose version of failure is, "I screwed up an account one time."

forgottenpass 12y ago

It doesn't cheapen our language to use failure in this way any more than it cheapens our language to use any other form of hyperbole. That's cold comfort in a world where "literally" now also means "figuratively."

alwaysdoit 12y ago
The problem of words having different magnitudes of potency depending on context is different from words being used to mean the exact opposite of their meaning in a non-ironic way.

thaumaturgy 12y ago

I gave up a well-paying job moving up the IT ranks at a major national recession-proof corporation because I came down with a case of wanderlust. I squandered the money I had left and found a passion as a rock climbing instructor that left me worse off than broke. I owed money to two different national banks and was unable to open a new checking account anywhere for years. I worked a retail job for an outdoor store in one of the most economically depressed areas of the state, until I was fired for constantly being five to fifteen minutes late to work. I had no other job prospects and was left with a resume and work history that would ensure I was unemployable at my previous levels for pretty much the rest of my life. I gambled what I had left, which was almost nothing, and moved to another place with the hopes of getting a job I saw in a newspaper ad and starting over again. I was homeless and I lived out of my car for a while. There. See, the thing is, nobody actually wants to hear that shit. Everybody wants to hear about why that whole period of life was actually really amazing (and some parts of it were pretty good), or they want to hear the upbeat happy ending (and there is one, in this case). But nobody wants to actually hear about a lack of success, or, like that Cake song goes, a bit of interrupted prosperity. The people that have those stories to tell pretty quickly learn not to tell them, and what's left are people whose version of failure is, "I screwed up an account one time."